I’ve been talking to many people about the controversy with Reddit, why I left it and why I went onto Lemmy, Kbin and Mastadon instead. Some of my friends have commented that the control is still a problem as other platforms and it is all dependent on who owns the software, who owns the hardware, who are the admins, who are the moderators and which community or group has the most influence.

Who are these people that influence the most control on the fediverse? Are they Conservative? Are they Liberal? Are they Republican? Are they Democrat? Do they lean to the left of politics? to the right? or are they center? Are they even political? But also if they had to be would they easily or not so easily influenced?

So … for the ELI5 version of the question … Who owns the fediverse?

  • livus@kbin.social
    1·
    2 years ago

    I see Smorks has answered your question but just to follow on from what @Hotzilla said, the great thing about the software being open source is that it’s totally possible for any group, for example an Indigenous arts collective, to run their own self-funded instance for their members, which can still inteact with others in the fediverse.

    • IninewCrowOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      for example an Indigenous arts collective, to run their own self-funded instance for their members

      that is a neat idea … but I am like most internet users and social media users … I don’t have time to do these things or organize them … I will participate in many of these activities, but I have neither the time, resources, skill or money to take part in them … I’ll support those who are capable and do support the same communities and perspectives I like … but the question always concerns me

      ->who owns/pays for/manages/maintains the service I am using

      • livus@kbin.social
        4·
        2 years ago

        To be clear, I am not saying to you, “you must do this yourself”.

        I am only saying, the source code of these platforms are resources that anyone can use.

        There will be many different ways of owning/paying/maintaining. There will be many kaupapa (purpose and process), some you will agree with and some you won’t.

        But, spread the word that the resources are here for us all. You and I might not have the energy but we probably know groups who would.

        You are in Canada on lemmy.ca and helping to support smorks, I am in Aotearoa reading your words through kbin.social and I donate to kbin’s dev, Ernest. It’s wonderful that we can have this conversation across platforms like this. I think great things will happen.

      • Boris Mann@news.cosocial.ca
        1·
        2 years ago

        I guess to put the question back to you, what would motivate you to pay $5/month or $50/year to support LemmyCa?

        You’re also talking to people who also think it’s an important question. My answer is “I think we should all pay for it”.

        • IninewCrowOP
          4·
          2 years ago

          What would motivate me is in understanding and knowing who the instance owner is and what kind of person they might be and what kind of instance they would like to run … and all of it explained and presented to me as clearly and openly as possible.

          The instance owner of lemmy.ca … @smorks … answered many of my questions today which motivated me to go ahead and sign up for a $5 a month contribution

          I agree with you … we should all pay for it, even if it is a small amount of a dollar a month … across thousands of users, it would make a huge difference. If no one pays for it or not enough people pay for it … money, greed, desperation, economy and finance will always creep in to corrupt what an instance owner will or won’t do.